The two men have things in common beyond disappointment. When the storm hit, they were both executive chefs at popular French Quarter restaurants, Kattoche at Maximo's Italian Grill, Mutin at Morton's The Steakhouse. And when the federally built levees failed, both Kattoche's and Mutin's material possessions were reduced to the few days' worth of items they'd packed to evacuate.

Kattoche and his wife lived in Gentilly. Mutin lived with his wife and two young children in Lakeview.

"My house was completely submerged," Mutin said. "We lost everything."

And just as the experiences of total loss led both men to settle their families elsewhere, the discontent that followed eventually caused them to restart their New Orleans lives they'd figured were gone for good.

Last Friday, Mutin returned to his old job at Morton's. Kattoche is working to get Maximo's reopened under new ownership. He hopes it will be open by Mardi Gras.

"It just needs cosmetic painting, a few touch-ups," Kattoche said of the Italian restaurant, which has been vacant since Hurricane Katrina. "We're going to keep everything the same as possible."

Mutin and Kattoche are among a growing number of members of the local restaurant community who've decided to return to New Orleans.

Nicole Williams and her two teenage daughters were displaced to Alabama before moving back to begin this school year. Judge Evans returned more recently from San Antonio, where he was cooking at a military base.

Both work in the kitchen of Ralph's on the Park, where Gus Martin is executive chef.

"They just missed home, like everybody else," Martin said of his employees.

He could relate. In the immediate wake of the floods, Martin quit his job at Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse and put his home in Kenner up for sale.

"I was going to relocate," he said. A confluence of events, including the opportunity to join Ralph's, caused him to reconsider.

The psychological seesaw attending the decision to stay or not to stay in New Orleans has been one of the squeakier gears in the city's battered emotional engine. Among local chefs and restaurant professionals, the vacillations of Rene Bajeux, who changed his mind about leaving and staying several times in two years, were the most public manifestations of this distinctively New Orleans anguish.

But the decision by many to return -- Bajeux is now happily working as executive chef of La Provence -- is evidence that some of this trauma is healing. It's also understandable.

In the eyes of the people who love it, New Orleans resumed being an attractive -- if complicated -- place to live some time ago. While no sane person would argue that the city's recovery is complete, the ship has steadied enough in the 28 months since Hurricane Katrina to entice back those who were probably ill-suited to live elsewhere.

Last year, Madison Curry moved home from New York to open Il Posto Italian Cafe, declaring her native New Orleans ripe for investment.

Considering that staffing is still a major problem for many restaurateurs, Kattoche was pleased to discover many key former employees who had moved away were eager to return to work at Maximo's.

One waiter's response to his phone call: "You made my day. I'd been thinking about coming back to New Orleans . . .,' " he said.

The reopening of Maximo's is particularly heartening, as it is one of the relatively few notable restaurants that has continued to sit dormant since the storm. Over 11 years at Maximo's (first day on the job: Aug. 29, 1994), Kattoche's approach to Italian cuisine, a kind of homage to the style found in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, served as a welcome antidote to the Creole-Italian cuisine that pervades the city.

The chef said Maximo's open kitchen -- "Everyone can see everything you do" -- helps ensure that the restaurant's pastas, roasted meats and other seasonal dishes are prepared with particular care.

"My philosophy is fast and fresh. Fancy is not in there" he said, adding that he's already noticing the fog of his post-Katrina depression lifting: "It feels good now, coming back to life. Particularly since I started working."

The Mutin family is also experiencing the merciful uplift of small pleasures. Because his Texas relocation was largely fueled by a concern for his children's education, Mutin's path back home has been particularly complicated. But he said his family, now living in Kenner, is enjoying "the soothing feeling of home" that only New Orleans provides.

Even the annoying stuff brings a smile.

"I just talked to my wife," Mutin said last week. "She said, 'I know I'm home when I'm on the phone fussing with Cox Cable.' "

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Restaurant writer Brett Anderson can be reached at banderson@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3353.